I feel so very blessed to be able to learn in this program. I can see a huge difference in my views on education from September to now. I am proud of my learning and development as a future educator. I am thankful for the incredible professors that I have gotten to work with and learn from. Here are some of the courses that have impacted me so very much.
EDTL 3100: Teaching and Learning 1
This course was the course that introduced me to lesson planning and real teaching. EDTL was very content heavy, but as a future teacher it changed my perspectives of all roles of the educator over and over. Heather was a wonderful professor and gave me outstanding feedback on all of my work. I was encouraged to dive into the basics of teaching, we got familiar with things like the Teachers Code of Ethics, how to use the curriculum and First Peoples Principles of Learning. This course really started my exploration into teaching and gave me the perfect roots to expand. When other courses “skipped” some of these basics, I could always rely on looking into our course content and likely finding the answers. I learned so much in this course about how to start as an educator.
EDLL 3200: Language and Literacy 2
This course has been so helpful for me. This course is suppose to assist my learning about teaching language and literacy. As an educator, I came into this program with assumptions of how I was going to teach. These assumptions however; have been challenged all semester long by the learning I have done in EDLL. The curriculum and teaching styles and practices have changed so much since I was in elementary school and I am constantly learning in this course about how. If I had not taken this course, I think I truly would have taught students in a way that did not benefit them the most because that is what I thought was correct. I enjoyed the assignments in this course and found them to be really helpful as a future educator. I specifically found the student presentations on literacy strategies so helpful. There are so many different strategies that I truly had no idea about, that I now feel confident teaching.
EDSO 3200: Social Studies
I had some issues in this course and found it challenging. The professors had incredible intentions, but their strategies going forward with them, may not have been the best. As a future educator, I learned a lot about how to deal with issues like these. I took on the perspective of the professors and tried to understand how the course was going from their point of view. Although I struggled with some parts of how this course was taught, it helped my learn a lot about how to teach issues of social justice and cultures. We did two big projects about cultural diversity and social justice in the classroom and how we would initiate these practices. From viewing my classmates finished presentations I learned so many fantastic ideas about ways I can provide my students with an inclusive learning experience. As a future teacher in a changing world, social justice is so important to me and I plan on making my classroom a safe space for all students regardless as to their gender and sexual identity, race, cultural background, language, disabilities etc. I found that this course taught me about how to actually use these practices of inclusion in the classroom.